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Topic: Electric Cars (Read 1075 times) previous topic - next topic

Electric Cars

I always wonderd what happend to them.

http://www.dontcrush.com

discuss
2013 Focus (Daily)
1968 Cougar XR7
1987 Turbo Coupe
5 Speed, Stock IHI, Aeromotive 340LPH, Stinger 3in DP w/Magnaflow 3in Race Series ler, Hallman Boost Controller, Corbeau Fixed Back Racing Seats, Rebuilt 35# Injectors, Kirban AFPR, Stinger's Front Mount Piping w/Big NPR Front Mount IC, 3/8 E-85 Fuel Lines, SPEC Stage 3+ Clutch, Explorer 4.0 Dual Core Radiator, Optima Red Top Battery
1988 Turbo Coupe (RIP)
1984 Cougar (RIP) :cougarsmily:
1986 Cougar XR7 5 Speed.  (sold)

Electric Cars

Reply #1 –
GM never actually sold the EV1.  They were a lease program.  The batteries had life expectancies of 6-8 years from what I understand  and did not live up to expectations, and were expensive as hell.
Here's an interesting article on this:http://www.gm.com/company/onlygm/fastlane_Blog.html

To quote it:

Quote
GM spent more than $1 billion developing the EV1 including significant sums on marketing and incentives to develop a mass market for it.
Only 800 vehicles were leased during a four-year period.
No other major automotive manufacturer is producing a pure electric vehicle for use on public roads and highways.
A waiting list of 5,000 only generated 50 people willing to follow through to a lease.
Because of low demand for the EV1, parts suppliers quit making replacement parts making future repair and safety of the vehicles difficult to nearly impossible


Keep in mind where this quote comes from.

Also if you haven't seen it:
http://www.sonyclassics.com/whokilledtheelectriccar/electric.html

This all goes back to the "Global Warming" theory and whether or not it is actually happening.  In the September issue of Car and Driver There is an article penned by Patrick Bedard titled An inconvenient truth:  SOS from Al Gore

To quote that aricle:

   
Quote
"Be worried.  Be VERY worried," blared the cover of Time in April.  "Climate Changeisn't some vague future problem-it's already damaging the planet at an alarming pace.  Here's how it affects you, your kids, and their kids as well."
    This is, by the way, the same Time that was telling us as late as 1983 to be worried, very worried, that temperature were descending into another era of "glacation."
    Gore's "inconvenient truth" is that-there's no tactful way to say this-we gas guzzling, SUV flaunting, comfort addicted, humans, wallowing in our own self-indulgences, have screwed up the planet.


Quote
Now for an inconvenient truth about CO2 sources - nature generates about 30 times as much as does man. Yet the warming worriers are uncincerned about nature's outpouring. They - And Al Gore - are alarmed only about anthropogenic CO2, that 3.2 percent are caused by humans.

They like to point fingers at the U.S. which generates about 23 percent of the world's anthropogenic CO2 in 2003, the latest figures from the Energy Information Administration. But this finger-pointing ignores yet another inconvenient truth about CO2. In fact, it's a minor contributor to the greenhouse effect when water vapor is taken into consideration. All the greenhouse gases together, including CO2 and methane, produce less than two percent of the greenhouse effect, according to Richard S. Lindzen of the Massechusetts Institute of Technology. Lindzen, by the way, is described by one source as "the most renowned climatologists in all the world."



Let's use a number such as 18 MPG and say the average car is driven 12000 miles per year.  That works out to a little under 670 gallons of gas used by one car per year.  Other sources state the US alone has 1/3 of the world's automobiles at around 200 million and that Worldwide Automobile prodution of "Greenhouse Gas" is only 10% of the total which makes US automobiles responsible for about 3 1/3% of the total.  How much is due to coal production?  Or Airline fuel?  I'd love to know how the Airlines would react if emissions guidelines were set in place in America.  Only within the past few months has this concept even been pondered by governments.  Wait till the lobbyistshiznit the Senate floor. 

I've went off on a tangent, I know.  Who killed the electric car?  The question should be who and WHAT killed the electric car.  Lack of technology and the high cost of research, the bottom line for car manufacturers (profit keeps them in business, and a product that loses money for a company MUST get the ax for the company to survive) and the wants of the American consumer.  Hybrids are here and they are a growing market so it's a step in the right direction.  Will the internal combustion engine be put out to pasture?  One day most assuredly, but probably not for quite some time.
-- 05 Mustang GT-Whipplecharged !!
--87 5.0 Trick Flow Heads & Intake - Custom Cam - Many other goodies...3100Lbs...Low12's!

Electric Cars

Reply #2 –
For me the whole global warming thing all goes to what a guy said about it on the radio once. The earth is way bigger than humans, to the earth we are just a virus or parsite if you will and eventually we will be picked off like a wood tick. (or swatted like a fly for those that don't know what a wood tick is)parapharsed not a direct quote

Weather records only go back bout 200 years. So how can we really say we know any thing bout the climate for sure on a planet that is a billion or so years old?

as for electric cars if or when the get here whats going to happen to all the gas tax money states and the feds will lose?

Electric Cars

Reply #3 –
Quote
whats going to happen to all the gas tax money states and the feds will lose?

They'll be in bed with the car companies.  The vehicles will be manufactured in a way that only allows them to be recharged at stations built specifically for that purpose.  So you will still have to go to a station and "fill up" to be able to drive your car.  So they'll just tax it based upon the amount of juice you need when you get to the charging station.
-Jim
1987 Cougar LS 5.0

Electric Cars

Reply #4 –
My problem with the electric cars is that it is supposed to reduce our dependancy on Fossil fuels. Well then where do we get the electricity to charge our electric cars? The Magic Electric Fairy?

I do realize some places have hydroelectric plants put I know most of the mid west is powered by coal, yet anothe fossil fuel. And what about the neuclear power plants? Seems like a bigger mess than cars burning fossil fuels.

As for global warming. Go measure the temp in a town that has not grown 300% in the last 50 years. I will bet you will have a different out look on thing. It hotter than hell where I live becasue they paved everything in site.

Electric Cars

Reply #5 –
My problem with the electric cars is that it is supposed to reduce our dependancy on Fossil fuels. Well then where do we get the electricity to charge our electric cars? The Magic Electric Fairy?

I do realize some places have hydroelectric plants put I know most of the mid west is powered by coal, yet anothe fossil fuel. And what about the neuclear power plants? Seems like a bigger mess than cars burning fossil fuels.

As for global warming. Go measure the temp in a town that has not grown 300% in the last 50 years. I will bet you will have a different out look on thing. It hotter than hell where I live becasue they paved everything in site.
 

Electric Cars

Reply #6 –
On the electric car and gas tax thing. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if each car had a computer chip installed where the government could, at the flip of a swich, remove anyones driving privelages. The government will charge a fee each month by how much someone drives and if they don't pay up, their car won't run.

I've heard talk of something like this on new cars for people who don't make their car payments on time.


Global warming and humans being the leading cause of it is pure BS. I'd love to see a televised debate on this.